The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Ruffo advancing without any plan, but relying upon the enemy's want of numbers, which prevented them from attempting to act upon the offensive, and ready to take advantage of any accident which might occur, approached Naples.
— from The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson by Robert Southey

This object is the absolutely unconditioned totality of the synthesis of phenomena.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

That her husband’s not being forward to make him a bill for Rere Admirall’s pay and Generall’s pay both at the same time after he was first made Generall did first give him occasion of keeping a distance from him, since which they have never been great friends, Pen having by degrees been continually growing higher and higher, till now that he do wholly slight them and use them only as servants.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

This, indeed, was frequently the case with Indian chiefs, either through their own credulity or to act upon that of their followers; and the influence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

This example is very full, if one thing were not to be objected, namely the multitude of friends for the perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible; each one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that he has nothing left to distribute to others: on the contrary, is sorry that he is not double, treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many souls and many wills, to confer them all upon this one object.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many moderns, inured to a weak worship of intellect and force, might have wavered in their allegiance under this oppression of a great personality.
— from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

The Club, of which I have often declared my self a Member, were last Night engaged in a Discourse upon that which passes for the chief Point of Honour among Men and Women; and started a great many Hints upon the Subject, which I thought were entirely new: I shall therefore methodize the several Reflections that arose upon this Occasion, and present my Reader with them for the Speculation of this Day; after having premised, that if there is any thing in this Paper which seems to differ with any Passage of last Thursday's , the Reader will consider this as the Sentiments of the Club, and the other as my own private Thoughts, or rather those of Pharamond .
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

The average height of mature trees is from seventy to 100 feet, with diameters up to six feet in rare cases, though more trunks are under than over two feet in diameter.
— from American Forest Trees by Henry H. Gibson

I have this to say: That the tariff is for the most part the result of compromises—that is, one State wishing to have something protected agrees to protect something else in some other State, so that, as a matter of fact, many things are protected that need no protection, and many things are unprotected that ought to be cared for by the Government.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. Interviews by Robert Green Ingersoll

With the approach of winter, however, came letters from the Tsar appointing Boris to the command of one of the new regiments of infantry, and requiring his immediate attendance at the head of his men to act under the orders of General Sheremetieff, who had already had a brush with the Swedes at Rappin in Livonia, and was now waiting to follow up his success there with a more important affair.
— from Boris the Bear-Hunter by Frederick Whishaw

The moment seemed ripe for the birth of an organized party raising the standard of social Toryism, and under that or any other flag there are always ready to rally round Lord Randolph a number of Conservatives sufficient to make things uncomfortable at Hatfield.
— from The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 29, May 1893 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

Other and abler pens have told and are still telling of his unselfishness, his audacity, his seemingly unbounded heroism both in the trenches and upon the open field of battle.
— from With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort by Edward Hungerford

It was also the duty of the armarian, under the orders of his superior, to provide the transcribers of manuscripts with the writings which they were to copy, as well as all the materials necessary for their labors, to make bargains as to payment, and to superintend the work during their progress.
— from Forty Centuries of Ink Or, A chronological narrative concerning ink and its backgrounds, introducing incidental observations and deductions, parallels of time and color phenomena, bibliography, chemistry, poetical effusions, citations, anecdotes and curiosa together with some evidence respecting the evanescent character of most inks of to-day and an epitome of chemico-legal ink. by David Nunes Carvalho

This formal activity which operates throughout a series of changes and holds them to a single course; which subordinates their aimless flux to its own perfect manifestation; which, leaping the boundaries of space and time, keeps individuals distant in space and remote in time to a uniform type of structure and function: this principle seemed to give insight into the very nature of reality itself.
— from The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought by John Dewey

If the mouldings are constant, the surface sculpture will change; if the capitals are of a fixed design, the traceries will change; if the traceries are monotonous, the capitals will 180 change; and if even, as in some fine schools, the early English for example, there is the slightest approximation to an unvarying type of mouldings, capitals, and floral decoration, the variety is found in the disposition of the masses, and in the figure sculpture.
— from The Stones of Venice, Volume 2 (of 3), by John Ruskin

The almost unanimous tradition of the fathers holds that Christ died upon the Latin cross, and there is no reason to doubt that this is correct.
— from The Gospel of St. John by Joseph MacRory